Chapter Sixteen
Mateo
The House Falls
The coven house is a war zone.
Walls are splintered, doors ripped from their hinges, and the acrid smoke of gunpowder mingles with the metallic stench of blood.
Glass crunches beneath my boots as I weave through the chaos.
My family fights around me—Kyson’s roar shakes the rafters, and Elfde is a whirlwind of claws and teeth—but still the jagters push in, desperate and fanatical, their eyes glazed with their unholy blood thirst.
Through the crackle of gunfire and the screams of dying men, Harlow’s voice cuts sharp and sure in my ear.
“Two coming left. Duck, now!”
I drop low without hesitation. A blade sings over my head, close enough that I feel the rush of air against my neck.
I pivot and sink my knife into the attacker’s stomach with a twist. Hot blood sprays across my chest as he crumples.
His partner lunges in, but he is too slow.
My boot shatters his knee, and the second blow cracks his skull.
“Good,” she whispers, her breath quick through the comm.
I can picture her in the saferoom—her beautiful hair disheveled, face pale but eyes burning as she hunches over the laptop, watching the feeds. My woman, fighting with me, even behind locked steel. Pride surges, sharper than the pain that rips through my ribs.
Then I see him.
Noah.
The jagter from Sangre. The one who hunted Harlow through the forest like she was prey.
He stalks toward me, blood streaking his face, his jaw clenched, his wild eyes fixed on me like I’m the devil himself. The fighting blurs into background noise. For him, for me, there is no one else.
“You,” he spits, his voice hoarse with hatred. “Murdering bastard.”
I bare my fangs, circling him like the predator I am. “You’ll have to be more specific, hunter.”
“My sister!” His roar rattles the broken windows. “You killed her.”
For a moment, I falter. His words make no sense. “I don’t know your sister,” I growl. “But I’ve ended plenty of jagters. You’re all the same—self-righteous killers.”
Harlow’s voice cuts in, hushed but urgent.
“Mateo ... I see them. The dead. They’re clinging to him. Dozens. He’s drowning in them.”
My jaw tightens. Dozens. He may think I am the monster, but by the sound of it, he is the true demon in our midst.
Noah’s face contorts, veins bulging at his temples as he snarls, “You vampires ruin everything you touch. You take, you corrupt, you destroy lives. My sister trusted one of you, and it killed her! And now you’ve sunk your claws into Harlow. I won’t let her rot in your grasp the way my sister did!”
At her name, fury detonates in my chest. “Don’t you dare say her name!”
He lunges. The knife gleams in the shattered light. I twist, but not fast enough. The blade buries deep in my abdomen. Fire rips through me, blood spilling hot across my hand as I clutch the wound.
A growl tears from my throat. “You should’ve gone for the heart, boy.”
I slash at him with my own blade, fury giving me strength. My blade glances across his arm, and he howls, thrashing like a rabid dog. His eyes burn with madness, not triumph.
He drives his knife forward again, but I catch his wrist, squeezing until bone grinds against bone. “You think you’re saving her?” I snarl, teeth inches from his throat. “All you’re doing is signing your death warrant.”
“Better me than letting her rot with a monster!” he spits, straining, veins bulging.
Before I can crush him, Elfde crashes into him from behind, claws ripping down his back. Noah screams, jerking violently, and for the first time, his frenzy falters. The remaining hunters see it too, and their resolve crumbles.
“Fall back!” one of them shouts.
Rough hands drag Noah and Elfde apart, but he fights like a beast in chains, spitting blood, his crazy eyes never leaving mine.
“You’re mine, vampire!” His voice is raw, cracked with hate. “I’ll kill you. I’ll rip out your black heart and make her watch! And then I will burn this building to the fucking ground!”
Then they’re gone, fleeing into the night just as suddenly as they arrived, their broken numbers dragging their mad leader with them. The strength drains from me all at once, and I collapse to one knee, blood pouring hot and steady through my fingers.
“Mateo!”
This time, her voice isn’t in my ear. It’s here, right in front of me.
Harlow bursts into the ruined hall, her eyes wide, face flushed, and her body trembling.
Her hair is wild, tangled from her frantic sprint, her chest heaving with shallow breaths.
Fear flickers in her gaze, sharp and blinding, but beneath it, anger burns.
Anger that I am hurt. Anger that the hunters dared touch me.
That they dared to defile our home, our sanctuary.
She drops to her knees, hands flying to mine, pressing against the wound with desperate strength. “No, no, no, stay with me. Please... Don’t you dare leave me.” Her voice cracks, breaking into ragged sobs, but her eyes stay locked on mine, fierce but terrified.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I rasp, though black edges blur my vision.
Riggs staggers over, blood streaking his jaw, grinning like a lunatic. “He’ll be fine, girlie. It takes a hell of a lot more than a little blade from a hunter pup to kill one of us.” He claps my shoulder too hard. “Let the consort fuss. It’ll do her good.”
Harlow glares up at him, eyes blazing even through her tears. Then she tears fabric from the bottom of my shirt and presses it to my wound, her hands shaking but steady enough to hold the pressure. Blood soaks her skin, crimson streaking her wrists, but she doesn’t flinch.
“You’re too damn stubborn to die on me,” she whispers, voice trembling but fierce. “Do you hear me, Mateo? Too stubborn.”
I smile at her words, knowing she is right.
Her hands are slick, her hair falling into her tear-streaked face, her entire body trembling with fear, but her eyes burn with a fire that anchors me to this world.
The house may be broken. My body may be torn.
But as long as she’s here, pressing her hands into my wound, fighting for me, I will not fall.
Harlow’s hands won’t leave me, even when Riggs steps back into the chaos to check on the others.
“Do you ... do you need a doctor?” Her voice trembles, brittle with fear, eyes darting to the wreckage like someone might appear and take me from her at any moment.
I catch her wrist before she can bolt. My voice is ragged but steady. “No. I just need to rest. And blood. Someone will bring bags as soon as they’ve tended to everyone else.”
She stares down at me, lips parted, tears streaking her cheeks. For a moment, the fury in her gaze outweighs the terror.
“When they’ve tended to everyone else? While you’re bleeding out?” She shakes her head sharply, strands of hair sticking to her wet face. “No. No waiting.”
My chest tightens when I see the resolve in her eyes. She leans closer, trembling but defiant.
“Take mine.”
The world seems to hold its breath. Her pulse beats wildly under the skin of her throat, a rhythm that calls to me even through the fog of pain. The offer is reckless. Dangerous. Beautiful.
“You don’t understand what you’re saying,” I rasp.
“I do.” She presses her palm harder against my wound, her jaw set, her voice shaking but unyielding. “You need it. And if it saves you, if it keeps you here, then I don’t care what it costs me.”
My fangs ache at the thought. The scent of her—fear, fury, devotion—wraps around me like fire, and I realize with brutal clarity that she means it. She would give me her blood. Her life. Everything.
I grip her chin, forcing her eyes to mine. “You don’t know what you’re offering. My bite isn’t gentle. It isn’t safe. It will bind you to me in ways you can’t imagine.”
Her lips tremble, but her gaze never wavers. “Then bind me.”
The words tear through me, more healing than any blood.
I drag in a breath, fighting the hunger clawing at my insides, fighting the urge to give in completely.
“Not here. Not like this,” I manage, though every instinct screams to sink my fangs into her now, to take what she offers and make her mine.
Her tears spill faster, dropping onto my chest as she bows her head. “Then don’t you dare die, Mateo,” she whispers fiercely. “Because if you do, I’ll never forgive you.”
My hand closes over hers, steadying her trembling fingers against my wound. “I told you, mi alma,” I whisper back, voice raw with pain and devotion. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The destruction around us fades into the distance. Right now, there’s only her ... the taste of her name on my tongue, the fire in her eyes, and the knowledge that I’d bleed myself dry before I ever let her go.